John Rapley - FOREIGN FOCUSSUPPOSE YOU were a prime minister of a country at war. Your government has split, ministers have resigned, your parliamentary majority has abandoned you and left you with a minority government; your own party has rejected the policy on which you have staked your claim to office, and the police have announced that they are investigating you on corruption charges. Your political career would probably be over, right?
Not if your name happens to be Ariel Sharon. The wily Israeli prime minister, who this week managed to shed at least some of the corruption charges, remains the archetypal survivor. For the time being, the end to the investigation will enable him to move forward his controversial policy of unilaterally withdrawing Israel from the occupied Gaza Strip.
Israeli peaceniks and the international community alike hope that this move will be the first stage in a full withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territories it occupied in the 1967 war. That may be a bit much to hope for. Despite Israeli settlers denunciation of Mr. Sharon as a traitor, he has always maintained that Jewish settlement of Palestinian lands is essential to Israel's security. By evacuating Gaza, he has managed to wangle a key concession from the American administration: a green light on his securing several key settlements in the much larger West Bank.
PRAGMATIST
Mr. Sharon is a pragmatist who judges settlements by their security value. But the settlement movement is dominated by religious Jews who believe they have a right indeed a duty to re-occupy the lands of biblical Israel. And since what God gave cannot be traded away, they fiercely oppose Mr. Sharon's gesture. Their influence in his Likud Party, and in some of the smaller parties that backed his coalition, has enabled them to weaken his hold on power.
However, in the country at large, Mr. Sharon's plan enjoys wide support, and his popularity is rising. In part, his poll numbers have been boosted by a modest economic rebound and a reduction in terrorist attacks within Israel. But most Israelis are not wedded to the occupied territories and would be willing to abandon most of them if they believed peace or at least a measure of stability would result.
It is difficult to see where this peace will come from, though. Having dismissed the Palestinian leadership as a negotiating partner, Mr. Sharon is forging ahead on his own. Consequently, Palestinians have even less say in the future direction of their lives than they did before (and it is far from obvious that Mr. Sharon ever seriously wanted a Palestinian negotiating partner).
PALESTINIANS RENDERED STATELESS
Mr. Sharon's military hard-line against Palestinian militants has ravaged the infrastructure of the Palestinian territories and rendered them virtually stateless. To add insult to injury, Mr. Sharon is now discussing his unilateral peace initiative with the White House, without any Palestinian representation in the process. The Arabs have been reduced to passive observers of the decisions that will govern their existence.
As for Mr. Sharon's political future, his government will only survive if he brings the opposition Labour Party on board.
Mr. Sharon's difficulty is that Labour will probably back him only if he softens some of his governments policies, particularly its economic policy. If he does this, he could lose the support of his own caucus. If he does not, though, he will fail to woo Labour, and his government will risk collapse.
Early elections may thus be a likely scenario. But while it is hard to see how Mr. Sharon will resolve this dilemma, one can never put it beyond him to do so. His opponents have counted him out before, only to see him bounce back, apparently unshaken.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
